


Orbis Tertius

by tyroneslothrop



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, Experimental, M/M, Morality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4851134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyroneslothrop/pseuds/tyroneslothrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Phil dares to sound into the silent visual serenade of his companion, his thick accent coming to life. "Meeting you was my greatest accomplishment. If I had to only keep memory, it'd be of meeting you."</p><p>Dan blinks at him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orbis Tertius

His bicycle created a soft whirring sound against the gentle breeze of morning. Clouds are draped on the sky by a golden wispy thread, weaved intricately behind their cerulean backdrop. Daises and dandelions turned to the young boy drifting up the path and they said hello to him. He waved back, a childish wiggle of the fingers. Phil, seven years old, is off to his favourite playing spot. The soft tarmac, the tire swing and the bags of sand. How fun it is to ride between the trees that frame that humble abode! And when he is parched, he can travel to the corner store a few houses down. And when he is tired, he can reside on the comfortable abandoned couch. The cushions are quilted, and the sweet colours remind Phil of his favourite blanket. He told his mother this a while ago, much to her endearment and amusement. It dawns on him that the summer holidays will come around soon.

For it was spring, and dampness still lingers in the winds. Below him, Phil feels the silent surrender of the pillowed puddles. He reaches his destination, and gently places his bike next to the fence. He notices a child has left their toy train by the couch. He shall have a shot of it! Yes he will! And then he will return it, in the hope that the child will come back and collect it.

So there he spends a grand few moments, directing the train through the muddy banks of his playing ground. It swishes through the vibrant muck. “You have arrived at your destination!” he rings. The cascade of morning was in full swing, encasing his body in the most exquisite way. The sun swung in the air like a carousel. His imaginary passengers descend onto the ground and he parks the truck carefully by the couch. Hands buried in the ground, head lifted to the sky, and Phil is glad he's alive.

Phil is thirsty (it is only Sunday!, his mother chimes in his mind) so he takes his bike and pushes it along the ground. Here we sail down the more eloquent parts of his street, beautiful flowers adorning his neighbours houses. The waft of pine wood and birch shavings kisses his nostrils. A stray cat comes. He pets them, the purr floating in the hazy air. Last nights tang of soft pork rink and the sweating vegetables was still fresh on his fingers. There was a rosebush next to one of the puddles, and he said to the rosebush 'hi'. The shop front comes into view.

One bottle of cola and another cat petting later. The swoon of oncoming afternoon skated along the sky. His school was in the horizon, and he knew he was not expected home for a while, so he cycled towards it. After a few minutes a gaggle of schoolboys graced his vision and he flew towards them, soon welcomed. He leaps off the bike with grace.

Sunday was alive in the little village, but it was common for the children to still hang around the school on weekends. His friends are stood like a halo around him. Daring him to eat the salt from the strange yellow containers scattered around the school. He obliges, much to their amusement. The janitor, Stevie, is less pleased by this display. They run off, giggles floating above their heads and into the clouds. He falls asleep later that day by the blazing fireplace, and his mother gently carries him to his bed, kissing his forehead. The susurrous billow of the curtain dances on his sleeping form.

His teddy Theodore is seated next to a grand home made cake. Eleven bright blue candles adorned the pale pink icing. He blows it out and wishes for happiness, gazing up at the polaroid picturesque gaze of his family. The next few years are a hazy blaze of friends, family and sailing down the street in his big boy bicycle (he doesn't need stabilizers any more!). His neighbours flowers have wilted and been replaced a thousand times, but they still greet him on his journeys. Maybe they pass down stories about him. The sky is a beacon of drizzling hope. Phil was glad he was alive. His heart leaps from the confines of his sweater almost every day, threatening to spill and flood over his village. Phil is in love with the earth and everyone in it. Phil is happy.

He dons his pair of new roller-skates and speeds down the thrumming streets. The soft wind caresses his face as his nimble legs navigate the world beneath his feet. Phil was still in love with the labyrinth-esuqe feel of his hometown. The stars swell in the sky and dance for him, and he still thinks God was watching in that moment. The sinking sun winked to him.

Soon, along came a sweet, sweltering amorous heat from the fleeting fits of his boyhood. Nights strained on his bed sheets. Everything looked different now. He jumped the fence of his garden one night and the street lights gleamed and came down to kiss him, the red brick wall of his school serenaded him. He could see their old football in the ditch in the distance. He leaped to it, and found an army of ants crawling through and on it. It's theirs now.

The rest passed like that. Noticing the good and noting the bad. Always placing more weight on the former. Excusing the later. Wings scalpelled between his shoulder blades. The ever present bat of wind when people were in his midst. He ascended above the populace, emblematic in the sky. And here he dusts the surface of the earth with his feet. And here he sinks into the concrete. And here he signs up for a thing called YouTube, makes a few videos, meets another boy...

Which brings us along to this current moment. Here he is, prostrated in front of his laptop, his boyfriend (can he call him that now?) a hazy pixelated silhouette. They've been silent for the past 20 or so minutes, Daniel (what a luxurious name!) scribbling something on his notepad. The boyish scrape of pen and paper filled up Phil's room, and he was enamoured.

He dares to sound into the silent visual serenade of his companion, his thick accent coming to life. "Meeting you was my greatest accomplishment. If I had to only keep memory, it'd be of meeting you."

Dan blinks at him.

-

A black hole beneath him. Dear Jesus, do something. A way a lone a last a long past the lurid street lamps, the only thing resembling a memory following him was the ever present inherent fear that the cars will crash to life and maul him. He is 22 and the world has came running with knifes, aiming for his ribcage, the thick ricochet of steel in the wet winter air. The silence is cutting. Riverscreech into the garden, jumping from the fence to the next street, catching his trousers on the barbed wire, now here we cycle and collide into the pompous slice of the avenue. The flawless kick jump from the steps to avoid the glass fragments, landing sole first. Into the next garden. Tangle of thorns tearing at his limbs. The ghost of his dad fainting in his trail. His daemon tail wedged between his thighs.

What was he doing a moment before this? A week? A month? A year ago? He cannot remember. Thrown face first into the present unaware. All he knew was how to flee.

The street lights are malnourished against the haggard backdrop of the dying day. The crows screeched to each other, tearing through the nothingness that swamped the village. There were no clouds in the disappearing sky. Phil was alone in his sprint. The rotten plants that decorated the brick homes were aloof and shrewd. So was he.

His name what Phil Lester. That he knew. He was white. That he could see. The architecture surrounding him was frail and orphaned. The city was dead, and Phil was a gatecrasher to the funeral. He gulped down the air as if he would die too. Sets off again, feet slapping on the pavement with irreverence.

A panorama of worn down homes directs him on his way to... see, that's it. Where is he? Every house, every monument is the fucking same. Maybe God got bored and decided to dick around with the first kid he seen. His legs are still scraping against the dull ache of the wind.

He passes a home in his mad run, and his heart bangs a bit. A nostalgia he has not earned. A slicing blade of ice in his throat. He slows and stutters towards it, pushing past the trees and rose corpses. There. Standing a murky red door. The sag of rotten letters in the mailbox battered into his nostrils. He cracked the wooden frame open.

He felt like an unwelcome guest. Something resonated in his chest with the décor, but something told him that this wasn't for him. Despite the 'Lester Household' sign outside. Despite the picture of him with a graduation cap on, front and center of the mantelpiece. He graduated?

The thick layer of dust on everything had a choleric look placed on it. “Get out”, it seems to sneer. He scrapes his fingernails on the banister, the tips of his fingers drowning in the murk. Upstairs, a door on the far right has a discord of stickers placed upon it. His room, he assumes.

He opens it, expecting the reek of reminiscence to mow him down. Instead... nothing. He was a blind intruder. There were Taratino posters flaking from the wall and strewn lion teddies on the floor. There was a laptop on a dirty desk, turned on.

There is a brown haired man on the screen. He's beautiful in a strange way, but Phil has no clue who he might be. It takes him a few slow moments to realize it is not a video. The man gives him a welcoming wiggle of his fingers, and he nods in response.

“Hi Phil!”

“How do you know my name?”

“Stop fucking around, babe.”

Bewilderment must have painted itself on his visage, as the face of his mysterious companion took on a look of fear.

“I'm Dan. Dan Howell.”

Phil observes the rose petal sunset from the murky window, a fragrant honey gloss dripping over the horizon. A novelty clock rhythmically mocks him in the background. Further on, a school of crows splinter over the sinking sun. He feels his soul float away with them.

“Remember?”

He didn't.


End file.
